A review by lgpiper
Pastoral by Nevil Shute

4.0

I suppose in a way this was a bit silly, but I rather liked it. It was a bit calmer then most of the other stuff I'd been reading. We have a WWII bomber pilot, Peter Marshall. His bomber mates get him interested in fishing. One day, he catches a "big one", a pike. He wants to show it off, but no one is much interested in seeing the amazing fish, except for a young WAAF, Section Officer Gervase Laura Robertson. She's in the signaling corps. She likes the fish, and gets Peter to show her where he caught it. She's a country girl from Yorkshire and likes out doorsy kinds of things. Naturally, she and Peter begin to fall in love, especially after he takes her out one day to see a badger hole...or something.

Well, there are problems, of course, the airmen and WAAFs aren't supposed to consort on base. Then too, Gervase is not sure she could contemplate marriage because she has a job to do helping to defeat the Germans. Peter flies some bombing runs and has some issues with one. And so forth.

As they would have said back in those days, "it's rather a lovely book". It is also a bit silly. The romantic parts are so muted as to be easily missed. Perhaps it's a bit like the Amish romances that appear to be all the rage these days. So we get something like,

They turned aside presently behind a spinney and exchanged a token of mutual goodwill; presently they came out again a little dishevelled and sat upon a style and smoked a cigarette together before turning back to camp.

Yup, that's what passes for a "sex scene" in this book. 😉 I didn't mind in the least.